Back on May 15, I noted (expected, hoped, etc.) that the Red Sox were going to "put an obscene beating on both the Brewers and Royals".

The team went 7-0, outscoring Milwaukee and Kansas City 49-28. That may not be obscene, but it'll do. The team batted .300/.377/.520 while holding its opponents to a .219/.312/.388 line.

Tonight starts a ten-game road trip with three in Oakland, three in Seattle and four in Baltimore. Then it's back to Fenway for a three-game AL East showdown with the Devil Rays.

As you can see by the schedule, the Sox have put together separate losing streaks of 3, 4 and 5 games as well as separate winning streaks of 4, 5, 6 and 7 games. All in the first 50 games of the season.

This will be the third time sox face Harden this year. So far he is 1-0 with a .82 ERA vs the Sox, this year. He and Wang are the only 2 of the 9 pitchers the Sox have faced twice this year who did not lose the second game.

I really don't believe there will be a true Rays "showdown," because the Sox will be at least 5 games up by then. This team is quite a bit better than the 2007 squad---the home record is more indicative of the team's true nature than the flukey road record.

I believe the Rays are at home while the Sox are on the road to two places they lose a lot of games. In last 5 years the Sox are 20 - 28 at Oak (12-12) and Seattle (8-16). If they go 3-3 during that part of the trip I would be happy.

The Jays this year are 16-8 at home this year and are facing Baltimore (are you scared of the O's), Texas and Chicago. I would not be surprised to see them win 7 of those 10 games.

The bullpen, Patrick, isn't scary, it's annoying. We know how good Delcarmen and Okajima can be and should be. If they simply pitch up to ability, and they are healthy, the pen looks strong. Aardsma will be scary, yes, and we know what we'll get from Lopez. Hansen has to find himself. Pap is Pap. I'm not worried about the pen, I'm just impatient with it.

This team has looked good LOSING. Typically they have outplayed the other team and then screw things up with one bad pitch, an error, a badly timed injury, something. There have been damn few games I didn't think the Sox should have won, and that's unusual. That's why I am confident that we will say this team was better, when the dust clears.

the laurier (university i go to) softball league had its first big event of the year today...beer fest, like the movie. a bunch of contests of drinking skill - started at 1pm, it is now 10 and i am done. but it was a good time! time for some beisbol!

Man, theres a bunch of islanders (Jamaican/Trinidadian?/Caribbeans) partying in my apartment (shared with 2 other people, one of which is from Bermuda)....this is a ridiculous night already, and the first pitch hasnt even been thrown!

yeah amy!.....ive just been jammed busy. a lot of school work etc...ironic thing is that when i finally got settled into my new apartment and started cooking for myself (altho a lack of spinach), they reeled off 7 wins in a row...

What an awful chess player Francona is sometimes. Why pitch Matsusaka against the Royals and Wakefield in Oakland, where he has to face two of the toughest hitters for him, Cust and Thomas? Makes no sense. I wonder if that even occured to Tito. I'd do anything to keep Wake from pitching against the A's, and flipping him with Dice-K was easy, with no downside.

RICH HARDEN IS PITCHING A PERFECT GAME!!!!RICH HARDEN IS PITCHING A PERFECT GAME!!!!RICH HARDEN IS PITCHING A PERFECT GAME!!!!RICH HARDEN IS PITCHING A PERFECT GAME!!!!RICH HARDEN IS PITCHING A PERFECT GAME!!!!

Here's one for everybody: When was the last time two players hit back to back grand slams? Meaning, guy hits grand dong, next three guys get on base, next guy hits another grand dong. (I don't know the answer--I just wonder how often this has happened...)

I don't know whether or not Willy Wonka is in HD, i just know they are using the big screen in the living room... I also know that HD or not, it would probably look awesome after smoking vast quantities of marijuana

I was wearing a David Ortiz Red Sox today... My sister gave it to me because it was too big for her. I was walking around in the grocery store and this guy wearing a Red Sox hat stopped me and said, "I don't think that shirt is really... you. Cause, ya know. David Ortiz is huge. I've been having trouble finding a shirt to get that is me. The thing with Ortiz - it's like watching a porno, where there's the big black guy. It's just hard to relate."

He later went on to tell me he was buying a Yankees hat and sowing "Suck" to it. And he lived in New York which was like "a gay guy saying he was a woman trapped in a guy's body" like a Red Sox fan trapped in a New Yorker's body, I guess.

Yesterday on the T on the way back from Fenway, this crazy woman (maybe 50 years old) starts chewing the ear off of this 12 year old kid who was with a visiting youth group from Maine about how Boston is "full of perverts and bad politicians" and about how Ted Kennedy is evil and God is punishing him with cancer.

The look on the kid's face was absolutely priceless. He literally said maybe two words to her the whole time.

Actually you would appreciate this one redsock, I met a woman in Cleveland who told me she was packing up her belongings (all of which fit in one backpack) and 'taking the next bus to canada' because she was 'sick of this country and its terrible morals.' She didn't really seem like one to have proper documentation, so thatm ust have been a fun meetup when the bus crossed into Canada